The 2025 Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) Tour began its long journey with the Hilton Grand Vocation Tournament of Champions on the 31st (Korea Standard Time).
The U.S. media Golf Week recently named Yoon Na as one of the six rookies to pay attention to in the 2025 LPGA tour. The list, which lacks any U.S. player, was made up of four Japanese players, one Korean player and the only non-Asian player with Swedish nationality, Inrid Lindblad is the most familiar player among the six notable rookies, given that she is from Europe, has long been ranked No. 1 in women's amateur leagues, studied in the U.S., and joined the LPGA tour through the second-division Epson Tour.
In order to win the 2025 LPGA Tour Rookie of the Year award, which Yoon has proposed as her official goal, she must win the competition against Japanese players, or "克." This is a major point of competition not only in Korea but also in the U.S.
Among the four "new faces" from Japan, Miyu Yamashita, the final winner of the qualifying series, and Rio Takeda, the winner of the Toto Japan Classic, last year's LPGA Tour tournament in Japan, are strong contenders for the Rookie of the Year award. Yamashita, Akie Iwai and Jisato twins, who shared key indicators in the 2024 Japan Ladies Professional Golf Association (JLPGA) Tour, are also good candidates for the Rookie of the Year award.
Yoon was definitely outstanding at the 2024 Korean LPGA tour. She only won once in 25 competitions, but ranked in the top 10 in 14 competitions, including four as runner-up and three as third. As a result, she dominated three major individual awards including the average pars (70.0526), prize money (1.21 billion won or 1.21 billion won or 1.23 million won or 1.23 million dollars), and grand prize points (535 points). Utilizing her 170 centimeter-tall stature, she ranked second in both average driving distance (254.9820 yards) and green accuracy rate (78.3626 percent) among all KLPGA tour players, proving her competence as the best player. However, she also exposed her relative weaknesses with her fairway seating rate of 69.1756 percent (63rd) and average number of putts per round of 29.9079 (31st).
Yamashita and Takeda are the two major mountain ranges that almost divided the 2024 JLPGA Tour. A significant portion of the JLPGA Tour records were first and second place in the names of the two players. To expand the scope a little more, most of the top five digits in each record, including the EYWI sisters, were competing for the LPGA tour.
Last year, Yamashita ranked first with 69.1478 and Takeda ranked second with 69.2378. Akie and Jisato ranked third (69.9040) and fifth (70.2580), respectively. In terms of Mercedes ranking, which is equivalent to the overall score of the season, Takeda ranks first with 3,744.30 points, and Yamashita ranks second with 3,199.18. Akie is also third with 2516.56 points and Jisato is fifth with 2,111.45 points. 먹튀검증
Yamashita and Takeda both stood out in the JLPGA tour last year, but they have distinctive differences in terms of content. Yamashita, who is shorter than 150 centimeters, used short but accurate tee shots, while Takeda, who is relatively tall (167 centimeters), played with a strategy of sending driver shots as far as possible. Moreover, Yamashita also showed better putting skills than competitors.
Yamashita had an average driving distance of 236.36 yards and Takeda 263.19. In contrast, Yamashita and Takeda had 78.0952 percent and Takeda 59.4737 percent in fairway settlement. Yoon's driving distance and fairway settlement rate are in the middle of the two.
Takeda ranks first overall in the JLPGA tour with 77.2515 percent of green hits. However, Akie came in second with 75.8581 percent, beating Yamashita (74.7475 percent) by a hair's breadth. Jisato came in 22nd with 71.4744 percent of green hits. Yamashita (28.3879 pars), who ranked second on average per round, stands out. Jisato (28.9712 pars), Takeda (29.2947 pars), who ranked 13th, and Akie (29.4555), who ranked 31st, both fell to double digits.